Fashion- Quotes about Japanese traditional and modern clothes, haircuts, make-up etc.

“Fabric crack”- Shopping for Japanese T-shirts, according to Tokyo Underground by Brian Flynn, Josh Bernard and Jeff Day

“Women, too, have a greater variety of best clothes, and now they can begin to afford the extravagance of the Japanese kimono… What to Westerners are simply symbols of Japaneseness, to Shinohata women are symbols of an expensive middle-class way of life which they can only now begin to afford” Another expensive ‘tradition’ that booms while less high status ones die away, Ronald P. Dore

“They happily wear The Factory’s uniform even on off-duty Sundays; when they come to the shop they loyally spurn the products of rival firms, even though the Factory’s brand may be out of stock” Poor villagers take the Japanese loyalty to the company to new extremes, Ronald P. Dore

“The only woman I have ever met who still had blackened teeth, a curious cosmetic device -or perhaps anti-cosmetic since it was confined to married women- which practically disappeared well before the end of the last century” Ronald P. Dore

“The average Japanese person’s perception of their own traditional kimono culture was of an avant-garde and unconventional medium- adventurous, bright and colourful. Therefore the introduction of Western fashion and modes of dressing (eg the suit) seemed by contrast, drab and limiting” Shoichi Aoki in “Fruits”

“One woman in her early twenties said that before she adopted the yamamba look, she was constantly being hit upon…’Now,’ she said triumphantly,’nobody touches me'” Kickboxing Geishas pg 9

“In the US we don’t really go for the old buying your wife an expensive gift to beg forgiveness anymore…But in Japan, neither public displays of affection nor private displays of affection are common, even among married couples. A Louis Vuitton bag is just so much easier.” A very plausible explanation to the Japanese brand obsession,from Kickboxing Geishas, pg 12